


As Moths

by Xparrot



Category: Smallville
Genre: Dark, Future Fic, Meteorfreak!Lana, Mutant, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-03-14
Updated: 2007-03-14
Packaged: 2017-10-09 02:09:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/81832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xparrot/pseuds/Xparrot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lana Lang had found her destiny elsewhere, and maybe that was best for everyone after all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	As Moths

**Author's Note:**

> Dark, and probably not for Lana fans. Or woobie!Lex fans, for that matter.

This month's postcard pictured the _Arc de Triomphe_. The charming hand and looping signature were the same as always, and as usual there was no return address.

Martha sorted it from her senatorial business and handed it to Clark when he got home. "Something came for you."

He took the postcard. "Oh, Lana again?" and he flipped it over and scanned the note, a cheerfully impersonal list of new artworks viewed and new desserts sampled, the customary 'France is beautiful' and 'having a great time.' Then he set it aside on the table and went to the refrigerator. "Hey, do we have any leftover taco meat? I was thinking we could do enchiladas tonight."

The postcard stayed forgotten on the table. The next day Martha put it aside with the other.

The first postcard, from Germany, Clark had been ready to run across the ocean and quarter Europe searching, and very well might have if he hadn't been so badly needed in Smallville at the time. By the time those catastrophes had passed, he had been convinced that Lana needed time and space, after the wedding and its aftermath.

The next three postcards he had collected, hoarded; Martha saw them on his desk in the loft, the few times she had cause to be up there, spread out writing-side up, waiting to be reread. But when the fifth had come, he had put them all away in one of the shoeboxes on his desk, haphazardly stashed with other mementos—Martha had always been a packrat herself, and Clark had picked up the habit. It was a useful trait for a burgeoning reporter, Chloe had pointed out; she kept her own postcards filed by date, along with correspondence from her other acquaintances.

The sixth card, and now this one, Clark hadn't bothered to take up to his desk. Martha kept them for him anyway, in case someday he might want to look back.

For now, she didn't mention them. In the last few months it seemed like an invisible weight had been lifted from Clark's shoulders. He carried himself differently, no longer stooped slightly as if ashamed of his height, trying to be eye-to-eye with someone much smaller; but upright, shoulders squared, strong enough to bear all the burdens of the world.

They were heavy, there was no denying that. Jonathan's death would always weigh on him, as that grief would always be a shadow over her. And the Luthors—Lionel was bad enough, but that Lex could have become what he was now, what she could no longer deny—it hurt her, to see how much Clark was hurting. Lana was thousands of miles away, and Lex no further than Metropolis, but the gulf between him and Clark was so much more unfathomable, inaccessible, and the more painful for it.

But Clark would laugh now on occasion, as she hadn't heard her son laugh in years. She wasn't always sure what to make of his friends, Bart, and Ollie, and the others, but they were good young men, and it pleased her to see Clark making friends again, reaching out so welcomingly, as he had when he was young. She had almost forgotten how he used to be, that shy little boy who nevertheless was so eager to make friends—he was always compassionate, but for a long time now he had been distant, as if something had held him back from people, stunting his open, social nature. She had always thought it was the awareness of his powers, his secret differences, but now, fully come into what he was meant to be, he was comfortable with himself and with others as he hadn't been in years.

There was his smile, too, when he was teasing Lois lately. Their give-and-take had changed in the last couple months, much less a sibling-like rivalry, much more something else. Not the abashed, obvious flirtation of teenagers, but a sharper, more aware, more mature attraction, and Martha was torn to see it, wanting her little boy back, being so proud of the man he had grown into.

It was as if Lana, leaving, had taken with her the chains of those awkward high school years, freeing Clark to become his true self. Martha might have felt guilty for being grateful she was gone, if the postcards didn't always sound so happy. Lana had found her own destiny. Martha didn't miss her, to her own surprise, felt no nostalgia for the girl she had watched grow up. When she thought of the grown woman now, it was hard to even picture her face. Large, shining eyes; the pretty oval shape—even in photographs, her beauty seemed like a stranger's, unfamiliar. She remembered she had once loved Lana like a daughter, but there was so little to remember her by now.

Chloe's passion always left a vivid impression. Pete's steadfast friendship Martha missed even now, wishing Clark had someone so practical and loyal beside him in these trying times. And Lex—she wouldn't have thought she would, but it bothered her sometimes, to think he would never turn up on the porch again, smiling that sly, too-young smile. Such an odd and striking young man; whatever he was now, he had once intruded into their home and carved a space there, such that his absence left a hole no one else could fit into.

But Lana had made hardly a mark, not on Smallville. Some days Martha forgot the Talon had been her project, had almost forgotten that sweet and determined young woman. She had become more beautiful as she had grown up, quieter and sadder, and the pain had only made her more lovely. Though now, Martha could not remember what Lana had looked like on her wedding day. She could remember the feeling of gazing at exquisite beauty, but not what she had actually seen, no details of the bride's face or dress; only a smeared ideal, as if someone had wiped a sponge over the painting of that day in her memory.

When Lana had been around, her brilliant and lovely light had drawn everyone to her; but now that she was gone, it was as if the lantern were extinguished, so they had to look up and see the stars again to find their way by. Maybe it was for the best after all. For everyone.

 

* * *

Lex walked down this corridor every day, at different times depending on his schedule, but once every twenty-four hours, if he were in Metropolis. He would take the elevator down to the bottom level, slide his card through the slot and provide a voice print and thumb print. The metal doors would open, and he would stride down the long, narrow hall, under the single row of florescent lights.

He always came alone, which was why today no bodyguard moved to shield him when a man in security grays sprang from the shadows, baton raised to bludgeon his bald head. Instead, Lex pulled his 9mm in a smooth gesture informed by several years of experience, and took aim at the man's head, between his eyes. "I would put that down," he said, gaze flicking to the badge on the man's vest pocket, "Marceaux."

Marceaux made a strangled gasp. His eyes crossed as he stared at the pistol leveled before them, hands clenching spasmodically around the club. "No," he panted, sweat shining on his pale strained face. "I have to—you can't do this—"

There was a wedding band on his finger, wrapped around the baton's grip. "Put it down," Lex repeated, softer. "This isn't what you want to do. You're a good man; you don't want to ruin your career like this. Think of your family, Marceaux, think of your wife."

The man blinked hard. "N-no—I can't let you—you can't do this to he—"

With a sharp crackle of electricity, Marceaux groaned and fell heavily to the floor. Behind him, another security guard in the same gray clipped his taser back on his belt and hurried over. "Mr. Luthor, are you okay?"

"I'm fine, Mr. Goodwin," Lex said, returning the gun to his shoulder holster.

Goodwin crouched to check Marceaux's pulse. "I'm so sorry about this, Mr. Luthor. One minute Tom was telling me about his son's first tooth, and then he heard the elevator alarm and was out the door before I could stop him."

"How long has he been on assignment down here?"

"Only four days." Goodwin shook his head. "I've got just one day to go on my ten-day rotation, and I haven't—"

"It can't be helped," Lex said. "It's not his fault; some people are naturally more vulnerable. Until we come up with a better way to test susceptibility—other than throwing them into the lion's den, and seeing how long they take to snap and try to kill me," and he smiled at Goodwin, inviting him to share the joke and calming him a little, "we'll have to deal with these little incidents as they arise. For now, the guard rotation will be reduced to cycles no longer than a week, with at least three months between assignments."

"We'll need to hire a dozen more people—"

"I'll leave that to you. Bring Marceaux to the infirmary, and call in Dr. Flynn for the evaluation. Hopefully with only four days' exposure he won't need more than a week or two of rehabilitation. And don't come back down yourself; send the next rotation now. I can't afford to lose you to this, too."

"Got it, Mr. Luthor," Goodwin said, then hesitated. "...Sir, there isn't a guard now—"

"I'll be quite all right, Mr. Goodwin," Lex assured him, stepped around Marceaux and continued down the hall, leaving the afflicted man in Goodwin's capable hands. At the keypad, he entered the combination, waited for the door to slide open, then stepped inside.

The room was dark as always, but for the spotlight shining down on one corner. The light was programmed to follow the signal from the implanted chip, but during his visits it was always fixed here, where the chains emerged from the wall.

They were encased in plastic and did not rattle, thin and light, but impervious to human strength. Clark, now, could have snapped them in an instant, but most meteor-mutated humans were not so gifted. Usually the chains were let out long enough to allow for free range of the room, but when Lex came they were retracted. It had been a necessary precaution since the second month, when an afflicted guard had slipped the subject a knife and Lex had come within a hair's breadth of losing an eye. He doubted that accident would reoccur, but one had to be careful.

So she was against the wall as always, the retracted chains fastened to the cuffs around her wrists and ankles forcing her kneeling. Sometimes she was defiant but today her shoulders were hunched, and in the spotlight's bright circle her wan face was streaked with tears. Her figure was gaunt under the loose jumpsuit, though she was provided with the proper nutrition; another fast, most likely. The hunger-sharpened definition of her features only brought out the magnificent liquid glow of her eyes, enormous and elfin, preternaturally shimmering with tears not yet shed.

She raised her head at the sound of his footsteps. "Lex," she said, hushed more than hoarse; neither tears nor thirst could change that breathy, appealing whisper to anything as harsh as a rasp. "Please..."

"You're looking more lovely than ever today, my dear," he said, and dropped his hand to stroke her hair. The long, raven tresses were tangled, and she must not be drinking the proper water intake either; the strands felt brittle, more like straw than silk. He curled his fingers in that nest, yanked back her head as she whimpered, tilting her face up to the light to study her features more closely. Still beautiful, more so every day, even if she starved herself, even with yesterday's bruises showing on her mouth.

Helen's countenance had launched a thousand ships, but it wasn't just her face, of course, or that slender body. Really he ought to gag her; the voice definitely played a part. He would have to go over the tapes later, check to see if she had spoken to Marceaux. He was still isolating the exact causes. Pheromones had been the first assumption to be ruled out; Gregor had fallen victim after eight days in the observation room, without ever entering the cell. Lex was still inclined to attribute the effect to a subliminal, telepathically projected empathy, but there was as yet no established scientific method to test for psychic emanations.

He wondered what Flynn would conclude had triggered Marceaux's breakdown. With a wife and young child, it was as likely to have been an accelerated stimulation of the paternal instinct as a lust-driven episode. True and genuine feelings for others offered no protection against what she induced. Anyone was vulnerable; he had verified that over the past months. Age, gender, race, culture, sexual preference; it made no difference. As far as he had been able to determine, even animals were not immune. They all shared one great weakness.

Love for Lana Lang took many forms: maternal or paternal, fraternal, platonic, obsessive, spiritual, romantic, erotic, or any combination. It could seem reasonable, or baseless; it could be embraced, or denied. The only constant was that it was irresistible. As long as an organism was capable of love, then she would draw them, as moths drawn to a flame's beautiful, immolating glow.

A fascinating mutation. And it did have its uses. Eventually he might figure out a way to harness such power for his own ends. Now he had a more personal hypothesis to test.

Lex Luthor, looking down into the lovely limpid pools of her eyes, felt nothing, and smiled.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm definitely not the first person to postulate that Lana is a love-mutant (nor the first to write it in fic; RivkaT's [Love Story](http://archiveofourown.org/works/39172) predated this by a year, though it was not a direct influence as I didn't discover her story until after I wrote this.) I don't remember where I first saw the idea (possibly on the TWoP boards?) but I adopted it as my personal canon and found it helps much of the show make more sense.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Promises to Keep](https://archiveofourown.org/works/81833) by [Xparrot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xparrot/pseuds/Xparrot)




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